


Thalassophilia

by grimsgay



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 17:04:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19398556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimsgay/pseuds/grimsgay
Summary: When Prompto reminisces on his first glimpse of the ocean, he calls it magical.





	Thalassophilia

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to apply to a Prompto centric zine - since results have been sent out, i now feel comfortable posting it! (I got accepted and I’m very excited to participate!!)

When Prompto thinks of the ocean, he doesn’t think of it as extraordinary. It’s not the mind numbing excitement that ignites when he imagines riding chocobos, or the joy he feels when Noctis first dares call him a friend. It’s not the curiosity or anxiety from his first trip to the citadel, when the towering buildings dwarfed his senses. He doesn’t shake with barely suppressed emotions - he doesn’t particularly know what to feel. It’s just the ocean - underwhelming at most. He’s seen pictures ten, twenty, a thousand times over, and while he’s never been to a body of water bigger than a pond, he doesn’t think much of it.

They’re going to see the ocean, but it’s just water, right?

That’s all it is - it sparkles more than any pool he remembers, sunlight bouncing off the gentle lull of waves. The sand, too, is different, but nothing spectacular. 

(It’s not spectacular but Prompto gets sand in his shoes and decides to throw some at Noctis. Suddenly all four of them are kicking and tossing it around. There’s sand in his hair, in his shirt, and in his pants- there’s laughter, vivacious and wonderful, and for a moment they forget who they are. Prompto isn’t a lowly commoner, Noctis isn’t a prince, Gladio and Ignis aren’t retainers. Prompto forgets that he doesn’t belong, and instead, he exists. They’re just four young men goofing around and enjoying the gift of life.)

Then Insomnia falls. The news crashes over them with the tide, and suddenly, everything changes. Nothing is innocent. No longer can they maintain the fragile guise of the carefree road trip they’d set out on. Prompto is brutally reminded that no matter how complacent he gets, he’ll never be like his allies. 

The ocean is darker now - deep and sinister, it beckons and threatens to swallow the last remnants of their normalcy. (Or maybe that’s just his imagination - Prompto has always been good at painting himself into fabricated nightmares.)

The next time Prompto sees the ocean is much the same as the first- it starts beautiful and gem colored, beckoning to them. They camp, cook, and laugh, but before they can enjoy their time together, there’s  _ tension.  _ Gladio and Noctis have always bickered and bantered, but not like this,  _ never like this _ . It tips the balance of their group, and Prompto learns the ocean is a herald of conflict.

(Again, in Altissia. They do their best with what they have. Noctis fulfills part of his calling, but not without loss. They are all fighting to quell the storm the empire brings, and Prompto thinks it’d be selfish to speak of himself. Noctis has lost his fiancé, Ignis; his eyes, and Gladio; his _ faith _ \- Prompto's only lost the foolish sense of comradery he’d still clung to - something that may not have belonged to him in the first place. So he lets his emotions too float to sea and sink to depths never touched by human eyes.) 

They keep going.

Prompto tries to hold them together - he does. In the end, he can barely manage that. He isn’t sure what he expected. He doesn’t belong.  _ He doesn’t belong _ . He doesn’t fit into the dynamic they’ve built since childhood, so it’s natural that he’s incapable of patching the cracks between them. The waves are growing again, stormy emotions rolling between them, and Prompto is helpless to do anything of actual merit.

He’s thrown off a train, into the snow, and it’s a different kind of storm this time, but nothing changes. He’s still some nobody, struggling onward. This time, though, he isn’t given the luxury of fantasy. He is alone - he can’t pretend he’s loved or supported, that he has any form of safety net to haul him in should he drift too far. (At the very least, he thinks, they are rid of his burden. He no longer anchors them down, and maybe, they can move on.) 

Trekking through the ice doesn’t calm him, merely exacerbates his despair, but it gives him something to do. The news of who - of  _ what _ he is should shock him. It should be the surprise of the century. Somehow, he already knew. Somewhere, behind the thinly veiled dreams and fragments of deluded happiness, he’d always known he’d never be normal. He’s not human, not like his friends (can he still call them that?), and though he desperately clings to the idea that someday he might be worth something to them, he knows he won’t. 

He’s drowning - faster than he ever has before, deeper and darker, and no matter how he tries to break the surface, to free himself of these feelings and  _ fight,  _ he’s still caught in the currents. It’s suffocating- the weight he bears, words and promises left unspoken, are saltwater in his lungs he’ll never pump out. How could he, when he’s just like the enemy they’re fighting? 

Aranea rescues him, and they make camp, but it doesn’t settle his mind. Even when she persuades him to keep going, to seek out his allies - friends, she calls them, as if they’d still consider him a friend, knowing what he is - his head remains waterlogged. She coaxes him to talk, and for a moment, he’s able to forget. He forgets about the war, about the death and destruction they’ve all faced. He forgets the prophecy, the empire, the magiteks- he forgets, and he remembers the moments dearest to him; a soft breeze, a ripple of water, and powdery sand. He remembers Noctis smiling at him as he’d tripped and soaked his clothing, how Gladio had rushed to join them, and Ignis had chased them with sunscreen. He remembers being alive and  _ free _ .

When Prompto reminisces on his first glimpse of the ocean, he calls it magical - and it had been. That moment, frozen in time, was the last in which he’d anchored himself to innocent brotherhood. The next day, he’d been pulled into the waves, and he’s been drowning in the undertow of war ever since.


End file.
